Sunday, May 14, 2017

Virginia to amend rules regarding advertising

The Virginia Supreme Court has announced that it will adopt new lawyer advertising rules effective July 1, 2017. Here is the announcement and the text of the new rules. The new rules will largely follow the suggestions of the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers which, for some time now, has been advocating the simplification of advertising rules. Go here for a post on the APRL's report on the subject and here for a comment on it.

I don't have a problem with an effort to simplify the rules on advertising. But there is an inherent problem in any rule that allows for discipline to be imposed based on a finding that information is "misleading." The word misleading is so vague it leaves too much up to interpretation. Yet, the word is part of the Constitutional analysis developed by the Supreme Court, so we have learned to tolerate it, I guess.